We’ve just returned from a beautiful week in Barcelona and Vidália, Catalunya, Spain. The time spent together provided four sustainability projects the chance to move forward and we’re grateful to see oikos CAMP continue to be a core program of our work at oikos of transforming eduction, developing future leaders, and empowering projects to help change the world.

Are you curious about CAMP and the work we do at oikos? Well, why don’t you read this recap below and get in touch with us if you have any questions. There is an invitation here for you to join oikos around the campfire.

This project is part of the Transforming Education work that oikos International participates in. We want you to be a part of it for next year! Do you want to join us? Email us at info@oikos-international.org! 

What is CAMP?

Imagine a space where sustainability projects have a nourishing, onsite location to grow and develop with creativity, play, and support. Oikos CAMP 2023 is that space. A campground to meet like-minded people and beautifully facilitated spaces that will boost your creativity & motivation. ✨

CAMP is a sustainability incubator where multiple project teams move ahead alongside each other. You decide what to focus on in our onsite, change lab and oikos provides the opportunity to join us for workshops that feed your creativity and provide helpful feedback! Our team from oikos will host you.

This year, CAMP began in Barcelona with everyone gathering together and getting to know each other. We then traveled together by bus to an eco-village where we spent a week together working and living while communing with nature and community. At the end of the week, we returned to Barcelona to present our work to our friends and families and share what we’ve learned.

The Teams at CAMP 2023

At CAMP this year we had four teams of participants from all around the world join to advance their work and to build connections across the different teams. Living, working, and playing together we grew individually and collectively in our projects. If you are curious to learn more about the projects check out their summary below which will have a link on how to get involved. 

Here are the four teams that met us onsite:

The 50% x oikos International
This cross-NGO team developed plans for a program that would empower the next generation of business leaders to become agents of system transformation. The team developed their proposal and project plan to make this program a reality and they have committed to finding partners that will make the development and education program a reality. 

The Sustainable Finance Team
Prepared a roadmap to follow to develop a Fellowship for Corporate Partners, Young Professionals, and Students to learn about sustainable finance and impact investing. The program will be implemented this fall with partners and participants able to sign up for a multi-month learning journey that will help democratize access to training and learnings to transform the financial world. 

The Transforming Education Squad
Created a workshop to help students improve their education programs to include sustainability more deeply in their university and studies. As part of the TE Squad, community members get to know each other and their current initiatives across different universities. Students get informed about the TE Squad’s resources and the current tools to help them incorporate sustainability into their education programs. Together the squad takes future steps.

The Genies
Hosted the experiential learning workshops of oikos CAMP. It was the third year the Genie team participated as CAMP facilitators and each year a new team of participants help develop and test out methods to help the other teams. The workshops the Genies host help teams work collectively, identify roadblocks, and work through challenges, and allow projects to function in new ways of collaborating and living. 

The final teams presented their CAMP outcomes at our Final Party and Community Gathering at the end of our week together. If you’d like to learn more about the teams check out their responses below. Here is a recording of their presentations: 

Special thanks to ESADE Business School who hosted us at Fusion Point on their Sant Cugat campus.

There were 19 participants from all over the world joining in CAMP 2023. A commitment we made last year was to make the program 2% more diverse and we think we certainily achieved that goal. 

_{^{* We recognize this map is inaccurate and Eurocentric. Our participants and their projects are working to change the world and the way we see it like this flawed map.}} 

Grateful to our Partners

CAMP 2023 would not have been possible without the help of our amazing network, partners, friends, and families. We want to highlight these partners that were able to support us financiallly. 

• Arne Loosveldt Association for Future Education
• Aviva Investors
• ESADE Business School
• Stiftung FGB 
• The 50 Percent
• The Club of Rome

We also benefited from individual donations and would like to encourage you to think about supporting our work. If you’d like to donate through our Crowdfunding Platform please do that 🙂 Every little bit helps. – – > https://goto.gg/f/46078

Let’s make Camp 2024 a reality – closing this edition means slowly getting ready for the next one! Please reach out if you can imagine joining our team for next year or make a donation to help make Camp’24 possible.

An Invitation

We want your help to create the next iteration of CAMP. Are you interested? 

oikos CAMP 2023 is made possible thanks to the financial and organizational support of the following institutions. We are looking to expand our partnerships and increase the reach of our programs. If you or someone in your network is interested in supporting future iterations of oikos CAMP please get in touch with us so we can start planning together. ’ !

Contact us at: info@oikos-international.org

More About Camp and Outcomes

What began as our Curriculum Camp in Sestriere, Italy in 2021 and grew into our 2022 version in Cal Vidal, Spain, has returned for a third iteration. This is the 3rd iteration of the oikos CAMP after a successful pilot in Italy in 2021 and a great second edition in Barcelona last year, where we saw big projects kick-off and develop like the oikos Sustainable Finance Toolkit, Story Squad, Sustainability Basecamp, Sustainable Business Models, Transforming Education squad, ESADE Transformation Lab and more. You can read more about the projects from oikos CAMP 2022 here.

If you would like to see some of the content we created from last year’s iteration here is our YouTube playlist and here is our Invitation Letter.

Team Outcomes

The 50% x oikos – CAMP project team

The 50 Percent and oikos International have been in an emerging partnership for the past year. Our joint ambition to engage young people as agents of systems change was already explored through joint proposals and hosting events during that time. Now, oikos CAMP 2023 gave us the opportunity to come physically together to take a great leap forward towards a concrete multi-year plan of joint activity. Our partnership aims to create an ecosystem of cross-generational leadership and learning for global equity in a healthy biosphere.

What is our outcome of camp: 

During the week, our cross-NGO came to the conclusion that we want to create an accessible introduction to systems-thinking in business for business, economics & management students. This target audience was chosen consciously. We see in our networks that business students who have an interest in sustainability do not often find the most progressive systems thinking approaches in their traditional education. Due to a lack of exposure & learning opportunities, they simply lack knowledge & practical experience to do business differently which is a gap that needs to be closed if we want to transform our societies towards regeneration. Businesses are a key part of our system and societies and have the potential to accelerate systems change, and thus, need future leaders (business students) who have the knowledge & skill set to drive change towards a regenerative business landscape. 
We aim to: 1. Raise awareness 2. Convey concepts and theory 3. Offer practical business case interaction  4. Build a community of partners and systems change agents

How? 

• Aug 23 – Mar 24: Starting with a learning campaign to build awareness for the gaps and opportunities in the business world. Most likely, this will be done in the form of a facilitated student focus group with regular touchpoints. 
• Aug 23 -Mar 24: Building a partner ecosystem, explore funding opportunities, organize hackathon & fellowship
• March 24: Host a hackathon 
• Aug 24 – Dec 24: Run a fellowship with theoretical & practical elements for deeper systems skill development
• Dec 24 – Mar 25: Evaluate and design next steps

We are excited to venture into this more close partnership and develop a way of increasing our collective impact through joint action! Check out our Outcome Presentation here.  If you want to see our CAMP presentation here it is. If you would like to join the 50% x oikos project then contact Caro at carolin.lemke@oikos-international.org.

Sustainable Finance Team

At oikos, we’d like to invite you to join a very special project on Sustainable Finance     
We would like the oikos community to join in co-creating our “Career-Map” and “Toolkit” . You can help us! If you’d like to join the Sustainable Finance Squad, we’ve designed a Google Form for you to share how you might want to particiapate. Sign up here!

Sustainable Finance at oikos

It was the third year that the oikos Sustainable Finance Squad sent a team of people to participate in CAMP. Each year, the team is new people but they always bring a commitment to sharing knowledge about sustainable finance with the world in an effort to help change the financial system to facilitate a sustainable future. The team sees there is a need for access to trainings, webinars, and networking be made more accessible to those interested in it. Many universities are not yet talking enough about sustainabilty in finance and here at oikos, our squad of students are learning by doing and creating ways for others to be empowered and up-skill their financial abilities to include an understanding of impact investing, climate change risks, and many other relevant topics to include. 

Outcomes from CAMP: 

• In 2021, the team developed a website of resources for students to learn about sustainable finance – oikos.world/susfin  
• In 2022, the team created and planned content for the oikos community to go deep into relevant finance topics – check out our YouTube playlist with some of the events and interviews we did.
• In 2023, the team designed and planned a fellowship for students and young professionals to learn about sustainable finance and impact investing. Check out this website to learn more about the fellowship which will be in partnership with a partner called the New England Impact Investing Initiative – https://www.neiii.org/thefellowship

Check out our Outcome Presentation here.

If you want to see our CAMP presentation here it is.

If you would like to join the Sustainable Finance Squad and participate in the Impact Investing Fellowship being developed then you can contact Stephen (our team leader) at stephen.snider@oikos-international.org. I’d love to encourage you to learn more. 

Transforming Education Squad 

We envision higher education that prepares youth to navigate complexity, and grow into the leaders of an economic system that generates positive environmental and social outcomes. Students play a key role in this systemic shift: with the sustainability challenge at hand, there now is an open window for young change agents to take ownership of their education and make change happen in real-time. Accompanied by early career researchers, lecturers, and together with other allies, students have the capacity to influence the why, what, and how of teaching and learning.

What is the TE Squad?

Everything started with a small group of 4-6 very different people who share one dream: Transforming higher education. We want to contribute to the transformation by creating a workshop that supports students to become active and achieve the changes they want to see at their local universities. Most of us had never met before camp, but when we got together, we soon realized that we are a great team. Our different backgrounds enabled us to see the project from different perspectives, and we also really enjoyed spending time together. To put it briefly, we had a blast during work and our free time!

We started by envisioning what our education could look like – learner-driven, open for discussion, more focused on sustainability…. we could have kept dreaming and talking for hours! But at some point, it was time to get to action. We started with many questions: How can we make others dream about what their education could look like? How can we help students leverage their impact? What struggles do they face, and how can these issues be overcome? Step by step, and with much support from the genies and the creative workshops they held throughout the camp, we found some answers and created the framework for our workshop “Take higher education one step further towards sustainability”. Currently, we are working on the details of the workshop and looking forward to sharing it with you!

Check out our Outcome Presentation here.

If you would like to join the Transforming Education Squad and participate in the TE Curriculum Change Workshop being developed then you can contact the TE Team at te.squad@oikos-international.org.

The Genies 

This team of international oikees helped to design the CAMP workshops. They provided participants with support, training, and skills. This year, the Genies also have been working hard to solve all the logistical issues. They helped to answer any questions participants had and made their stay comfortable.

Genies bring magic to CAMP!

The genies are four young volunteers who have been working hard these past months to make CAMP happen. Once in CAMP, they have been dealing with the day-to-day logistics, offering creative workshops to participants and facilitating teamwork. Each workshop of the week focused on a different topic, which helped the teams further develop their projects.

Being a genie is truly a magical experience: you have a positive impact on many different people, who then bring that impact into their projects and eventually the whole group. It has been very personally rewarding to be able to inspire people and to be inspired back in unexpected ways.

Our purpose was to create a space of creativity, co-creation, and learning together. As the days went by, and among dances, language exchange, and meal talks, we saw the participants “leaning in” and connecting with each other, growing both personally and within the community. It’s amazing how much personal development and project acceleration can happen in 8 days! This shows it’s really possible to transform reality in one week. If you want to see our Genies this year check out this part of our Outcome Presentation.

You can go CAMPing with us at oikos International. Please drop an email to us letting us know you are ready to set out on your own adventure – info@oikos-international.org.

These are the CAMP voices

Hear from the Campers themselves in their own voices. We’re so proud of their contributions as it is really the participants that make Camp a successful environment.

To everyone that helped and participated: huge THANK YOU! We’re incredibly grateful for your trust in us & oikos, for your proactive participation & your daring to lean into new ways of being & doing. We cannot wait to hear more about your takeaways & meet you again.

Drop us a line if you want to help us to go CAMPING in the FUTURE!